The present invention relates to a wire connector and, more particularly, to a device permitting a secured, strong and safe winding of many wire pairs simultaneously.
Connecting wire pairs, such as, for example, electrical wire pairs, is very common. One way of connecting two electrical wires is by pressing each of the wires to a mutual metal member by screws, using a screw drive. However, screwing screws in large numbers is time consuming and tedious.
Another way of connecting two electrical wires is by winding the electrical wires around each other. Winding electrical wires is relatively an efficient way of connecting two or more electrical wires since it yields a large area of contact between the wound wires and, therefore, good conductivity (e.g. low resistance of the connecting region to electrical current) and strong physical connection between the electrical wires are obtained.
A common, yet unsafe, non-repetitive and, therefore, less efficient way of winding electrical wires being winding the wires manually. However, manually wound electrical wires tend to physically disconnect. Furthermore, such electrical wire connections are typically covered for insulation and, more importantly, for safety purposes, with izolirband, which tends to fall off.
To overcome the above mentioned disadvantages of manual electrical wire winding, devices such as the one shown in FIGS. 1a-b, permitting winding of two electrical wires were developed. As shown in FIG. 1a, these devices are generally characterized by two substantially similar hingedly attached members 10 and 12 arranged as to form a mirror image of one another. Each of members 10 and 12 has two 14a and 14b and, 16a and 16b, respectively, parallel channels suitable to accommodate an electrical wire, the channels are arranged so that channel 14a is in a direct linear continuation of channel 16a and channel 14b is in a direct linear continuation of channel 16b. At the connection between members 10 and 12, engulfing channels 14a and 14b and channels 16a and 16b, each of members 10 and 12 has a ring, 18 and 20, respectively, protecting the wound electrical wires.
The operation of the device for wire winding described above is shown in FIGS. 1a-b and involves (a) inserting a first electrical wire 22 through channel 16a onto channel 14a; (b) inserting a second electrical wire 24 either through channel 14b onto channel 16b (wires oriented 180.degree. one relative to the other) or through channel 16b onto channel 14b (wires oriented 0.degree. one relative to the other); (c) rotating member 10 relative to member 12 as to wind the wires one around the other as detailed in FIG. 2.
The device described above has two drawbacks. First this device is suitable for connecting only two electrical wires and can not be modularity changed to enable the winding of more than two electrical wires. Second, as shown in FIG. 2, the wound region is collinear with the remaining not wound parts of the wires, therefore, when pulling the wires away from one another, the vectorial force imposed on the connection substantially equals the total amount of force applied by thus pulling the wires.
There is thus a widely recognized need for, and it would be highly advantageous to have, a wire connector permitting a secured, strong and safe wire winding of any number of wires, which wire connector ensures that the axis along which winding occurs, is not collinear with the unwound remaining of the wires, or permits further strengthening the connection of collinear wound wires, or both, thereby, strengthening the connection between the wires.